Pros and Cons of Free Web Hosting: Should You or Shouldn't You?

If there is one thing people love, it is getting something for free. The general mindset here is, “Why pay for something when you can get it for free?” The same actually goes for web hosting. There are numerous hosting service providers online offering free web hosting to just about anyone who wants to put up a website, making it seem like the best option out there, considering that it is free.

What some people may fail to realize is that, while you do not need to shell out any money for this hosting service, you do have to sacrifice something for it. To help you better understand what a free web hosting can (and cannot) give you, and to ascertain whether or not this is the best kind of hosting service for your site, let us tackle the pros and cons of free web hosting. Is this kind of hosting ideal for your planned website or are you better off with paid hosting?

Why Free Web Hosting is Very Popular

As mentioned earlier, it is human nature to want to get something for free. If you put the word “free” beside any offered product or service, you are sure to get a lot of response from people around you. That is the power of the word “free”.

People who opt to use a free web hosting service choose to use such a hosting choice because they do not have to pay for having their website go live online. It is also considered a user-friendly hosting service and is ideal for those who do not know how to put up a website from scratch. It is basically a good hosting option for neophytes who are trying to learn the basics of website creation, management and operations.

Why You Should Not Consider Free Web Hosting

While getting something for free is deemed as a good thing, sometimes, it has a lot of limitations. Much like free products or services you get from businesses you patronize, there is a limit on what you get without paying anything.

Much like a movie trailer, where you get to see what a movie is all about, and you see some scenes from it, you don’t actually get to see the entire movie for free. You need to pay the full price for the movie in order to see it from start to finish and to get the entire story. In short, there are limitations to what you get for free.

With free web hosting, yes you do get to see your site go live, and you do get to do so without needing any technical training to get it up and running, but you are only given rather limited resources to do so. When you choose to go with free web hosting, you put yourself at the mercy of hosting provider’s rules.

For starters, when you put up your website, all you will see for your domain name is the host’s domain name with your sub-domain name placed after it. If you are using the free web hosting service for a personal site however, this may not matter much. If you are thinking of using this kind of a server for a business, however, you should know that you won’t be able to rank well with search engines because of this, which will translate to low traffic and loss of possible revenue.

Other negative aspects that come with using free web hosting include the limitations you have in terms of bandwidth allocation, file space and customization options. You will be subjected to the whims and decisions of the web hosting service and since you are not paying anything for it, they can basically do anything they want. They can even change their terms anytime and suspend the service until you agree to a paid server hosting that they provide.

In short, while free hosting may seem like a good idea due to the fact that you don’t need to shell out any cash for it, for those who are serious about their website and keeping it running properly, it might not be that good an idea. Not only are you limiting your options with such a hosting choice, you are also opening yourself up to so many risks that include constant downtimes, loss of revenue and lack of control over your own site.